Cocktail bitters such as the well-known Angostura and Peychauds are very bitter alcoholic liquids that began as medicinals but are now used to lend a bitter flavor to cocktails. They are usually too strong and bitter to drink on their own. In other words, they are not “potable.” For this reason, they can be sold … Read more
Have you ever tasted cocktail bitters straight? When I was a kid, my mother was a bartender. She always had a bottle of Angostura bitters on hand. I used to love to sample it. It was both disgustingly bitter and surprisingly thrilling to taste. Being so young, I can’t say I could make out all the flavors. … Read more
Difficulty: Easy! Time: Patience is Required. Making homemade bitters for cocktails is similar to making a homemade liqueur. You can think of a basic bitters recipe as being similar to making a very strong tea with alcohol in place of water. You simply place the flavoring ingredients in a high-proof alcoholic liquor of your choice and let the … Read more
Bitters are essential for any true classic cocktail. Before the term cocktail became a generic term for a mixed alcoholic drink, bitters were part of the definition of cocktail: a spirit, sugar, water, and bitters. If you want to make an Old Fashioned and you don’t have any bitters on hand, you can’t make an Old … Read more
Modern liqueur classifications are much simpler than the original ones, which were set up when liqueur production began to be organized so that standards of quality and consistency were applied. Liqueurs that have a thick and oily consistency were referred to as crèmes, oils, or balms. Those with a lighter texture were called waters, extracts, or elixirs. Distinctions were made in terms of … Read more
Defining Bitter Bitter is one of the tastes that you can distinguish by the taste buds on your tongue, along with sweet, sour, salty, and unami. It was once thought that you could only taste bitter with the back of your tongue, but we now know that bitterness can be registered by all parts of … Read more